Director of 99 tunnel project irked at state shifting blame

Seattle Tunnel Partners project director Chris Dixon expressed surprise Thursday that after a longtime good-working relationship, the state now blames its contractors for difficulties with the Highway 99 tunnel project.

Criticisms by Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson “have the potential of seriously damaging this relationship and adversely affect WSDOT’s and STP’s ability to move forward together to deliver this project,” said Dixon in a letter to her and shared with state lawmakers.

The rancor comes in an early stage of the drilling work. More commonly, public-works fights come toward a project’s end, when governments and builders joust over claims for extra payment, based on unforeseen changes.

The 57-foot-diameter tunnel drill has been stalled for six weeks, after completing about 1,000 feet of its 1.7-mile trip from Sodo to South Lake Union.

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Peterson — who issued a pair of harsh messages about STP’s performance this week — nonetheless told senators Thursday she is confident the tunnel construction will ultimately succeed.

“There’s no fatal flaw. We’re going to make it through,” she said.

On Monday, she had announced STP was in “breach of contract” for setting barriers to small businesses owned by women and minorities, based on a federal civil-rights investigation last fall. The feds also accused the state Department of Transportation of failing to provide oversight.

“We are surprised that WSDOT appears to be attempting to shift the responsibility for the cost and time impacts associated with the current TBM stoppage to STP, when WSDOT understands that the cause of this stoppage was the encountering of a steel well casing, which was installed and left in place by WSDOT.”

But Todd Trepanier, the DOT’s Highway 99 administrator, told the senators that not only did the state show the well casing in contract documents, but it appears the top of the pipe had been “driven over” earlier in the project.

International tunneling expert Colin Lawrence of New York, who will serve on the new state tunnel-oversight team, told senators about his background, including work on the Channel Tunnel between England and France.

“I’ve seen projects that have had much bigger problems than what you’re encountering, believe it or not,” Lawrence said. “I’ve also seen projects where they’ve had to change the contractor.”

He urged leaders to rely on facts from upcoming cutter inspections, as opposed to speculation about what’s hindering the machine.